ABSTRACT
This study embarks on a stylistic reading of Chukwuemeka Ike's selected prose texts to ascertain how language is used to address the issues of character assassination and vaulting ambition. In The Chicken Chasers, the novelist through the characters and their actions, dramatises the failure of the Nigerian state; for instance when the African Cultural Organisation (ACO) members gather at a plush coastal resort for its meeting, the first topic on the agenda is not culture but power. Ike drives home the themes through characters such as Chass, Mat, Baby Face, High Commissioner and Saki who speaks ill of the Secretary-General at any slightest opportunity and are hell- bent on deposing him. Toads for Supper addresses the disillusionment that accompanies some aspects of the Nigerian customs and traditions. The Naked Gods survey an academic setting where University dons engage in power tussle to succeed the outgoing V.C, as some characters such as Prof. Ikin, Dr. Okoro, Dr. Wilson ( the Vice-Chancellor), engage in the game of power play to achieve their egocentric agenda.
KEY WORDS: Stylistics, Reading, Selected, Prose, Language, Character, Assassination, Vaulting.
